Archive for the 'Guatemala' Category

As found in a comedrona’s (midwife’s) clinic, glucose challenges for diabetes in pregnant woman use coconut flavored water, instead of the orange-flavored stuff in the US. Score one point for Central American medicine.

I think now more than ever people that care about the environment need to concentrate their efforts on birth control and family planning. It seems like all our problems with resource usage are due to too many people. I certainly understand why families in countries like Guatemala have many children, and we need to improve the lives of the people, but family planning has a ton of importance. It should be a bigger environmental issue.

Also, I support microcredit more and more. It doesn’t matter how much money I send to the poor, or how many medicines or free clinics I open, it’s not sustainable unless the people help themselves. I really, highly recommend Banker to the Poor, by M. Yanas, who won the Nobel Peace Prize a few years back, if you don’t know anything about microcredit.

Without regulations, people suffer. I came down here to Xela thinking, perhaps regulations are bad. Maybe life really is better with fewer laws. No. No. No. Without regulations, children live dangerous lies. Without regulations, people breathe dirty, polluted air. If you want to experience the heaven of a truly free market economy, come see Xela and live the life. Seriously.

Plastic has changed life here. Plastic is the new sanitary. Seriously, you don’t need to have your hands washed (which is an issue with dirty water) if you can eat out of plastic. A cookie in the street? Wrapped in plastic it’s much safer to eat. I like it a lot, as I think it makes my chances of getting ill less, but it’s terrible for the environment. (Also plastic bags are really useful here, and plastic ropes to tie things, too.)

The US is not good for Guatemalan families. I’ve heard this from many people. Men searching for better jobs head to the US, but after they arrive they forget their families in Guate. They spend much of their money earned on new women and alcohol, and the majority of the money doesn’t get back to their Guatemalan families, who desperately need it. We need to work to improve Central American countries, for our success in the US as well as theirs.

It’s better to assume the best if a person talks about you. Here in Guatemala, people are almost all bilingual, speaking both Spanish and another language, often Quiche. (Quiche is one of many indigenous languages.) Sometimes women will start speaking in Quiche after talking to me in Spanish, while giggling. I assume it’s ’cause they think I’m cute. Better than thinking it’s cause I’m a stupid annoying gringo.

Ingles:
Before we start seeing patients, we have a week of cultural competency here. Today we learned about ‘heaty’ and ‘cooling’ foods, the belief among many Latinos (and other cultures) that some foods are innately heating, while others are cooling. If a person eats too much of one category, he or she will fall ill. While all of us were a wee bit skeptical (placebo effect, anyone?), we all agreed it’s certainly important to understand our patients’ worldviews.

Our teacher said that he can taste foods and instantly tell if they’re heaty or cooling, even if they’re not necessarily hot or cold temperature-wise.

2: I need a shotgun. Everyone here seems to have them. At schools, pharmacies, the mall… it’s incredible. It seems like it’s more for show, to scare people off than for actual use, but I still don’t really get it.

I have had a ridiculous obsession with my bowels this week, but now it’s better. I swear, the tiniest gurgle from my stomach would send me into a panic. I’ll still eat safe (no street food), but otherwise I’m giving up. I hope I don’t get anything, but it’s probably out of my control.